


Running

by Elisexyz



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Season 5 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has no one left in a world half destructed by the fights between Michael and Lucifer. He doesn’t know why all this is happening, he just tries to survive, holding onto the feeling that he has something left to do. One day, he is saved by a stranger, Gabriel, who doesn’t seem willing to leave him alone – Dean actually doesn’t mind it. But there is something about him, something about the way he looks at him, about the déjà-vu the Winchester experiences around him, about the strange nightmares that wake him up every night, that makes Dean think that maybe Gabriel is not telling him everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction was written for the [Debriel Exchange](http://debrielexchange.tumblr.com) on Tumblr and it's based on [charla8897](http://charla8897.tumblr.com/)'s prompt: " _Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse AU. If Apocalypse, how do Dean and Gabriel face the chaos? If Post-Apocalypse, then show them struggling through a wasteland._ " with a little bit of " _Anything where Dean is hurt and Gabriel is overprotective and a BAMF and has to force Dean to sit still and let him take care of him._ ". The second prompt is kind of spread in all the fic, but anyway... This started as a completely different thing and I'm not totally satisfied by the result, but I hope you'll like it :) For anything, you can find me on my [Tumblr](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com). Enjoy!  
>   
>  **Edit 15/08/2017** : This work is pretty old and- not really good, lol. I don't want to delete it because it was for an exchange so it doesn't seem fair, _but_ if you came here after reading more recent stories (or if you came here at all, actually)... don't judge me, I know I should probablty rewrite it XD

   


“As quickly as possible” Dean warned, lifting his finger as if to threaten him.  
“You’ve said the same thing over five times, Dean-o” Gabriel mocked him, smiling in that way that made Dean wanting to rip his face off. With his nails. But maybe it wasn’t convenient, in that exact moment, and he owed him one, anyway. Stupid idiot randomly showing up to save his life.  
“You haven’t listened over five times, Gabriel” he replied, tightening his grip on his gun as he walked into the grocery store. He was ahead, ready to face any upcoming danger. He looked at his right with the corner of his eye, half expecting to find his brother, but all that he could see was some kind of dwarf with a mocking smile on his face.  
Gabriel didn’t seem to be willing to stay behind, as he sped up to be slightly ahead of him. Dean didn’t feel uncomfortable in the position: he knew, somehow, that that guy was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, for once, he didn’t feel like _he_ had to be the shield.  
“Oh, look, candies!” Gabriel whispered, looking as excited as a kid in a toy store. If Dean had been a girl, he probably would have thought he was cute. Anyway, Gabriel wasn’t the only candy-lover in there.  
“You go for them, I’ll look for the other things. Don’t forget the M &Ms”  
Gabriel smirked. “I like your style”  
   
It looked like somebody already passed in there, since many things were gone. Dean could find some cereals, biscuits and canned tuna. There was no water, only orange juice, and many shelves were empty. Well, it was still better than nothing.  
When he went back to see what Gabriel got, he was nowhere to be found. He frowned, slowly putting the food down to reach for his gun. “Ga-” he started to call, then he felt an hand on his mouth and, one second later, he was pressed on the wall, as Gabriel held his t-shirt with one hand to keep him still and prevented him from screaming with the other.  
Dean found himself immediately relaxing and embracing some kind of confused memory: it was like a dream, a little scene that came to him after a gesture or a feeling during the day; it was fast, distant, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He tried to hold onto the memory, because it seemed important somehow, but it slipped away from his fingers and the moment was gone.  
A group of infected men passed in front of the store: they were hidden so Dean couldn’t see them, but their groans weren’t difficult to hear. When they had passed, Gabriel, whose left hand was still on Dean’s chest, smirked. “You owe me _two_ ” he announced.  
“If I stab you and then save you, does it count as one?” Dean replied, unable to hide his half smirk.  
“Maybe, but you would be an awful person and I would be _terribly_ offended by such a dick move” Gabriel answered, dramatically.  
Dean shook his head, shoving him away as he reached for the food he had put on the ground. “You are a drama queen” _Thanks, man_.  
“It takes one to know one”  
Dean looked at him, slightly frowned as Gabriel’s smirk seemed to be a little bit too sad to prevent him from assuming that his feeling that there was something more in that sentence wasn’t paranoia. There was something in the way Gabriel looked at him, in the way sometimes he seemed to hope and fear at the same time for some kind of reaction that never came.  
He didn’t answer.  
   
   
-  
   
   
The house was desert and had a basement, so they immediately decided to go for it. They took the only mattress available - apparently a couple lived there before the disaster – and brought it in their temporary refuge – it was anything but easy, considering how little the entrance was -, along with their food and weapons. There was a little lamp hanging on the ceiling, enough to let them see what they were doing, but not enough to not make Dean stumble on a little box on the ground as he was reaching for the food – Gabriel laughed for two minutes straight, while Dean tried to not suffocate because of the dust he had inhaled.  
That place smelled of mould: the couple that lived in the house probably didn’t bother cleaning it up – not that he blamed them, since there was nothing useful in that basement and it looked like the usual crime scene of an horror movie.  
“It’s disgusting” Gabriel snorted, glaring at the tuna they were eating.  
“You can’t survive eating only candies, man” Dean replied, shivering at how much he sounded like Sam. ‘ _You can’t survive eating only hamburgers, Dean_ ’ he used to say. ‘ _Wanna bet?_ ’ was Dean’s reply.  
“Wanna bet?” Gabriel replied, as if he had heard his thoughts.  
“I’d rather not have a sick idiot to take care of. I couldn’t even leave you somewhere to die, _I would be morally obliged to help you_ ” Dean concluded with as much emphasis as he could.  
“Come on, I am the only joy in your pathetic life, you know that” Gabriel said, putting the tuna aside. He probably decided that it wasn’t worth it.  
Dean just shook his head, trying to ignore the smell of that basement. It wasn’t like he had been raised in a beautiful house, with a servant and some kind of nanny to dress him up: his dad was a hunter who killed monsters, those that many people in the world – included Gabriel, probably – thought were only part of horror movies, so they just moved wherever there was a case. Their home was a car, their houses were motels.  
But still, he hated that smell: it was the same that there was in some crappy motel rooms they had to sleep in. It felt like living in a memory and he almost expected his dad and his brother to be there with him instead of Gabriel. But they were dead and they would not come back, ever. Not his father, who gave his life to the demon who killed Mary only to save Dean’s life, not Sam, who died because of a stroke. Dean had always tried to protect him from everything, but he couldn’t prevent that. He hated that feeling of helplessness as the doctor shook his head and said that there was nothing he could do and that he was sorry. The poor guy had to be the victim of Dean’s wrath as he screamed that he was a fucking doctor and there _had_ to be something he could do.  
“Do you have a family?” Dean asked, without thinking. He wanted to stop thinking about Sam, about Dad, he wanted something to distract himself and his mouth was quicker than his brain. It was stupid to ask about Gabriel’s family when he himself was willing to reveal nothing.  
“Feeling nostalgic?” Gabriel asked in return, apparently lightly, but Dean saw in him the reflection of his way to react to painful topics.  
“Kind of” he admitted. Gabriel nodded.  
“I have many brothers. I ran away years ago” he explained, still lightly. He wasn’t looking at Dean in the eye. “Some of them are kind of… Difficult to deal with”  
“Who isn’t?” Dean replied, smirking. “Orange Juice?”  
   
   
-  
   
   
They had been playing poker for a ridiculous amount of time – Dean was sure Gabriel was cheating somehow: there’s no way he could be that good and lucky – when Dean announced that he was going to bed.  
“Tired of losing, Dean-o?” Gabriel teased him.   
“Tired of letting you win” Dean corrected, grabbing the blanket they had found on the sofa. “Don’t try to assault me while I sleep” Dean warned, showing him that his gun was handy and ready to be used.  
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I am a man of honour, I would never show such disrespect to such a beautiful lady” Gabriel replied, gesturing with his hands and pretending he had a sword to make everything more dramatic.  
“Aren’t you too fond of candies for an honourable knight?” Dean asked, blushing a little as he fully realized that they were going to sleep in the same bed: Sam and his dad always told him that during sleep he had the tendency to move towards any heat source he could find, to curl up beside it. He couldn’t even imagine how much Gabriel would have teased him if he started to treat him like some kind of fluffy teddy bear. Damn.  
“Every man has his weakness” Gabriel shrugged. “I’m gonna sleep too” he said, settling beside him.  
Dean moved a little towards the right, before mumbling “’Night” and turning off the light.  
   
   
-  
   
   
_“He hasn’t shown up, do you think he is…?”_  
_Sam was hesitating, but Dean knew that his loss wouldn’t affect him. Damn, he was still mad himself for what he had done, but for Sam it was much worse: Sam remembered, while Dean had only his brother’s stressed face as a reason to be mad. Still, he felt strange. In a bad way._  
_“Let’s find out” he said, as he started to drive and the street’s colours mixed with one another._  
_It seemed like a second when he was standing outside of a building, closing the door of the Impala as Sam did the same. They looked at each other for a second, silently, as they realized that there was no sound. Dean nodded and preceded his brother into the house._  
_It wasn’t difficult to find him: he was lying on the floor, in the same room he had fought Lucifer in – in the same room Dean had pushed him in; he wouldn’t have chosen to fight, hadn’t it been for Dean -, his wings imprinted on the floor as a concrete proof of his death._  
_“Fuck” Dean murmured. His hands were trembling a little, maybe his whole body was shaking, and his eyes refused to move away from the corpse lying on the floor._ Your fault, your fault, your fault _._  
_“Are we- We should bury him” Sam said. Dean barely heard him. He still had the DVD in his jacket: it was heavy, as if Gabriel’s whole body – meatsuit; who knew who that poor bastard was – had been hidden in it._ Your fault, your fault, your fault _._  
_“Yeah- Yeah, let’s bury him” he replied -_ Your fault, your fault, your fault _\- He wanted to scream -_ Your fault, your fault, your fault _– Sam winced and fell on the ground -_ Your fault, your fault, your fault _– Dean tried to reach for him, but he couldn’t -_ Your fault, your fault, your fault _\- “I’m sorry, I’m -_ Your fault, your fault, your fault _\- so sorry, I-”_  
   
 He couldn’t breathe. That was the first thing he realized as he woke up. It was like a ball had been forced into his throat, preventing him from inhaling oxygen.  
“Hey, hey, easy” he could hear somebody say.  
Dean opened his mouth to talk, to say that he was sorry, he truly was, to ask where was Sam, and he realized that he was sobbing instead. But he could breathe, and that was a good thing.  
“Come on, breathe, Dean. You can do it, just like me” Gabriel insisted, and his voice was strangely sweet. Some part of Dean’s brain realized that he had to really look like crap if the most annoying idiot he had ever know was acting like a caring boyfriend.  
“I-I’m fine” he managed to say “I just- Just a nightmare” he added. _In, out. In, out_. He sat on the mattress, looking for the orange juice, cleaning his face at the same time.  
“I noticed” Gabriel replied, handing him the juice. “You were apologizing”  
Dean almost told him that he didn’t need to know all the details, thanks, but decided to suck it and shut up: he had already waken him up in the middle of the night, there was no need to start a fight about how Gabriel was supposed to be tactful with his buddy who had just woken up from a nightmare and looked like a teenager who had been dumped by her boyfriend.  
“You can go back to sleep” Dean said, not sure if he actually wanted him to: being left alone with his thoughts and the glimpses of the nightmare walking around his mind didn’t sound like a good idea.  
“Nah” Gabriel replied “I wasn’t even sleeping”  
“And what were you doing then? Watching the starts?” Dean asked, ironically. His head ached and his eyes still burned, but he ignored the aftermath of the weeping and focused on trying to make his hands stop trembling instead. Also, he was wrapped in the blanket, while Gabriel was completely uncovered.  
“No” he replied, with a huge smirk Dean was able to see thanks to the lamp that Gabriel had probably turned on in an attempt to wake him up. “I was counting your freckles, Dean-o”  
Dean risked to suffocate in an attempt to swallow his own saliva.  
“What- What the Hell?!” he finally said, shocked. “That’s- That’s creepy!”  
“Oh, don’t be such a prudish little boy” Gabriel smirked. Dean didn’t know if he had to take him seriously.  
“No wonder that I didn’t sleep well then!” he said, even if the thought of Gabriel watching over him as he was sleeping wasn’t as creepy as it should have been. _That_ was creepy.  
“I highly doubt it was my fault” Gabriel said. His smile was beginning to fade and Dean sensed the seriousness of the question before it actually came: he saw it in Gabriel’s eyes, which had become a shade darker, he saw it in his hands, tensed and uneasy. It was scary how easy it was for him to read that guy. “What were you dreaming about?”  
Dean wasn’t expecting _that_ , anyway.  
“Why do you care?” he immediately asked, defensive. He wasn’t going to talk about his brother to an half stranger, he wasn’t- Suddenly, he remembered Gabriel himself lying on the floor, with a shade that looked like wings behind him. He remembered his own hands shaking, he remembered a terrible guilt, even before Sam was the one hitting the ground. _What the Hell_.  
“I’m just curious” Gabriel shrugged, but his eyes suggested otherwise. Dean barely noticed, busy as he was with his attempt to shake that uncomfortable feeling off.  
“It’s none of your business” he finally said, not as angry and annoyed as he should have been. Gabriel didn’t seem offended, just quiet, just tired. He smiled, nodded quickly and said: “I’m gonna take some air” as he stood up.  
It took Dean a couple of seconds to realized what he had heard.  
“Are you mad?!” he asked, standing up as well and reaching for Gabriel at the same time. “It’s _night_ and there may be dozens of those killer machines out there. And what about the attacks, mmh? You need to stay underground” It’s not like he cared _that much_ about him, but it was insane to let anyone walk around in those circumstances. Plus, he owed him two and he was not going to let him die before he had the chance to pay his debt.  
“Relax, Dean-o, I’ll be near” Gabriel, answered, in a ‘it’s no big deal’ tone Dean knew he himself had used more than once. Now he got why Sam found it so fucking annoying. “And I can take good care of myself, anyway” Gabriel added.  
It was still some kind of suicide, Dean thought. He couldn’t keep the image of Gabriel’s lifeless body lying on the ground out of his head.  
“But if you are so worried you can come with me” Gabriel smirked “I don’t mind a nanny taking care of me, even if it’s not necessary”  
“I’m not your-” Dean protested, outraged. That wasn’t the point he was- _Oh, you know what, fuck it all_. “Alright” Dean said, letting him go. Gabriel hadn’t seemed to notice his hand still holding his t-shirt nor he did anything to make him remove it. Now he had just followed it with his eyes as it separated from his body, just like children did with butterflies and any other little creature able to fly above their little snotty noses. “Go, I won’t be waiting”  
Gabriel seemed almost hurt by his reaction. And, maybe, Dean could have admitted that he had been a little too harsh all of a sudden, but he had had a fucking terrible nightmare, he had his head full of images of Sam and Gabriel lying dead on the ground, as he felt his stomach twisted by guilt, and then he was told that he was being a stupid nanny and that that idiot could take good care of himself. Well, fuck him.  
He sat on the mattress: Gabriel was already gone and Dean had already changed his mind about waiting for him. Not that he felt like sleeping at all, anyway: the idea of being trapped in another nightmare didn’t sound too appealing.  
   
   
-  
   
   
_“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition”_  
_He quickly shut his eyes as the light approached him. He felt like he was starting to breathe again after days, weeks, months, as if somebody arrived with some oxygen, giving it to him as a gift._  
_“Cas” he tried to say, but the word didn’t come out. It didn’t even hold a particular meaning for him._  
_He felt a body next to his own, a shoulder under his hand as he realized he was smiling at a shadow walking beside him– “It has been a long time since I last laughed that hard”._  
   
He woke up to a strange feeling of warmth.  
It reminded him of when he was a kid, of the nights in which the dark seemed too scary and he climbed on his dad’s bed, careful to not wake up him. The next morning, John was always holding him into his arms and Dean felt warm, protected, because if there was anyone who could shield him from the dark and all the monsters hidden into it, that was his dad.  
Now he still felt warm, but it wasn’t his dad the one who was hugging him – Fuck, he _knew_ that he would have ended up curling beside Gabriel.  
He seemed to be asleep, so Dean carefully tried to get free from the embrace, unconsciously holding his breath. He had fallen asleep before Gabriel came back from his trip outside, so at least it _looked_ like he hadn’t been waiting for him. But know that he thought about it, he wasn’t lying on the mattress when he had fallen asleep. This could only mean that Gabriel was the one who brought him there, like some kind of male sleeping beauty. Fuck. He was going to tease him for the rest of his miserable life.  
He finally managed to get free, and judging by how loudly Gabriel was snoring he had succeeded into not waking him up.  
He was hungry, so he decided to eat something and go in the house to use the bathroom. He stopped before going out, realizing that maybe leaving without a note would have been unwise: he knew that he would have freaked out if he had woken up to find Gabriel suddenly gone. I mean, not- not _exactly_ freaked out, but he would have been a little bit worried and those were not jokes to make in that period.  
But, after all, Gabriel didn’t seem too worried of going out himself, so he didn’t see how it could have been any different for him. In the end, he decided to go out without leaving any note. He would have been back in a few minutes, anyway.  
   
   
-  
   
   
Walking around the streets always felt dangerous.  
Even if there had been an attack in that town just a couple of hours ago and logic would suggest that the monsters doing that left, as Dean breathed he almost feared that the oxygen itself could be a treat, that he and Gabriel could blow up any moment. The idea didn’t seem too unappealing.  
He remembered how he felt after his father’s death, he remembered holding onto Sam, as always, breathing because he knew – needed to believe – that his brother couldn’t survive without him, that somebody would have killed Sammy hadn’t he been around to stop them.  
But now, now that the world was being slowly destroyed and Sam had died not long before, what was he living for?  
He remembered it when Gabriel touched his shoulder and pointed at a collapsed house with his head. Dean could hear somebody using a catcall to ask for help, as he remembered they taught at school, when explaining to kids how to react if there was an earthquake.  
As he run towards the ruins, Dean remembered all the hunts, all the people he saved before and after Sam’s death. He remembered how he lived for the smiles of those innocents that could go on with their lives thanks to him, he remembered how he made himself go on. He had tried to make another deal, like the one he had barely escaped, killing Lilith, but he couldn’t. It seemed like no demon wanted to make a deal with him, no matter how loud he screamed. So he had lived, he had kept trying and saving lives.  
It made him feel a little bit better, at least, it gave him some kind of purpose.  
Even now, in this kind of Apocalypse, he did everything he could to save the people around him, but it wasn’t easy to shield innocents from attacks that had no body to kill. Or, at least, no body he had been able to find yet. He wondered what kind of monsters could be able to do all that damage.  
   
Dean looked at his right to find Gabriel beside him: he was looking at him, with a strange mix of admiration, interest and other things that he had no time to identify right now. The catcall directed them towards the right, where they started moving the ruins until Dean found a dirty hand.  
“We are getting you out of there, don’t worry” Dean said, as loudly as he could to be sure that whoever was hidden in there could hear him.  
It turned out it was a boy, around sixteen years old. He hadn’t been killed by the earthquake just ‘cause he was walking through a door when the attack came and he was left enough room to breathe thanks to the girder.  
Dean helped him getting on his feet, slowly stroking his back to calm him down and make him stop trembling. The boy had dried tears in his eyes and was terribly dirty and skinny, which made him look really fragile.  
“What’s your name?” Dean asked. With the corner of his eye, he saw Gabriel walking around the ruins, probably looking for other survivors.  
“My-my mom and sister” the boy managed to say, after struggling for a couple of seconds. “Gotta save ‘em”  
Dean was going to reassure him that he was going to try immediately, when Gabriel approached them, with a blank face. “There are no other survivors. Sorry” he announced.  
Dean frowned. “How do you know?”  
Gabriel looked at him as if it was obvious and he was just being stupid, glaring at him like he was supposed to know, then he just shrugged and said: “There are just ruins in there. And it’s not safe to stay here, we have to go”  
The boy was protesting, trying to put his foot on even if he could barely talk and his voice was almost impossible to hear. Dean put an hand on his shoulder, making him turn. “Don’t worry, kiddo, I’m gonna look for them”  
The boy seemed to relax a bit as he nodded with a thankful look on his face. Dean wanted to puke when he found the ghost of Sam in that expression.  
“Alright, bring him to safety and stay with him, I’m gonna look for them” Dean said, looking at Gabriel this time. He was taken aback when he saw the man’s expression: he was incarnation of the word “Nope”.  
“What?” Dean asked, confused.  
“Do you want to stay here and hope that no one is gonna kill you?” Gabriel asked. He had crossed his arms and was glaring at him like he had just killed his puppy or something.  
“I know how to take care of myself” Dean said, pushing the boy towards him. “Who is being a nanny now?” he teased then.  
Gabriel looked at him for a couple of second with an expression that Dean could have sworn was concern, then that look was gone and the man was shrugging. “Do what you want, it’s your funeral”  
Dean felt a distant ache in his chest, as Gabriel and the boy walked away: for a second, he had thought that he was genuinely worried about him. He hated himself a little bit more for needing that so bad.  
   
   
-  
   
It seemed like ages when he finally found a body: it was a woman, her arm twisted in an unnatural way and her head covered in blood. Dead.  
“Fuck” Dean cursed. How many chances were there that the boy’s sister was still alive?  
He found out that she was dead as well when she moved the woman’s body to bury her: a little girl, around ten years old, lied dead under her.  
“Son of a bitch” Dean whispered. He didn’t want to tell the boy. He couldn’t, because he knew what it felt like. But he had to: he would have never left him wondering.  
He was going to look for something to bury the bodies, when he heard the familiar roar of a man infected by the Croatoan virus. He immediately reached for his gun, the ruins behind him as he looked around to look for the enemies. If he had died there, Gabriel probably would have found him in Hell only to tell him: “I told you” and annoy him for eternity. That would have been the scariest thing about death, probably. Or worse: he could have survived but wounded. Gabriel wouldn’t have left him alone _ever_.  
He looked for a place to hide, but the infected men were already running towards him and going inside a shop would have only meant trapping himself.  
“Son of a bitch” he cursed again, preparing to fight. The first man that approached him he killed with his gun. The second came closer, while he was dealing with the third one. The second was killed by a gun that wasn’t his own, and before he even saw him or heard the “I told you”, Dean knew that Gabriel was there. Well, now he _could_ tell him he was a worried mommy, he thought, ignoring the little smile across his face and the warmth in his chest as he realized that Gabriel, after all, had been watching over him. Like his mother used to say angels did – _“I’m Gabriel” “The archangel?” A circle of fire, a fire alarm, “This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family!” “Dean- you were right. I was afraid to stand up to my brother”_.  
“Dean!” Gabriel warned him.  
Dean shot the infected man right before he jumped on him. He shook off the feeling that remembering that dream, or whatever it was, left on him, focusing on the battle.  
“Where did you leave the boy?” Dean asked, mentally cursing as he realized that it seemed like there were more and more of those killers around them.  
“Are you worrying about him _now_?” Gabriel asked, putting his knife into a woman’s head.  
“Gabe-” Dean glared at him, regretting it the moment he risked to be bitten by a boy that could be no more than twelve years old.  
“He’s safe, now worry about your ass”  
Dean decided that that was enough. He noticed with the corner of his eye a figure approaching Gabriel from the right: he seemed too busy with two other men to notice. Dean didn’t even need to think about it: he shot the man and when Gabriel, taken aback, looked at his right, he smirked: “And now I owe you _only one_ ”  
   
   
-  
   
“So… You were hiding behind a tree like a worried mommy” Dean smirked, as he and Gabriel walked towards the place where the boy was hidden.  
“I just trust your habit to be an idiot, Dean-o” Gabriel answered, acting like an adult annoyed by a child.  
“That’s definitely a ‘yes’” Dean decided, smirking.  
As much as he would have never admitted it, he liked the feeling that his annoying partner in that strange Apocalypse was worried about him. It made him feel not only wanted but also kind of safe, like Gabriel could have saved him from any danger in that world. It sounded stupid and strange, ‘cause he hadn’t allowed himself to feel safe and protected since his father’s death, but he still couldn’t shake that feeling off.  
“Well, you would be dead now, hadn’t it been for me” Gabriel claimed, looking around, probably to remember where the place exactly was.  
“I would have worked something out” Dean assured. Maybe he really would have: he couldn’t count all the times he - and his brother - had come out of impossible situations. They always partied with beers and crisps after those hunts, because they had made it, they were still alive after all. Dean had never done it again after Sam’s death.  
“Yeah, you wish. Here’s the place” Gabriel announced, pointing at a manhole. “That was a refuge during times of war”  
   
The boy was sitting on a bed, hands jointed in prayer. Dean felt his knees go numb as he realized that he was probably praying for the sake of his family and no one listened to him. He saw himself in that boy, he saw himself as a kid, sitting in the dark and praying for his dad not to die. He had given up God a long time ago, but he had faith in his father, and if he said “I’ll be back”, he would be.  
“Did you find them?” the boy jumped on his feet, an hopeful look on his face.  
Dean was as straightforward as possible: “They didn’t make it. Sorry”  
He didn’t look at the boy’s face.  
   
   
-  
   
_“I don’t believe”_  
_“In what?”_  
_Sam’s face was covered in blood, the look in his eyes was as far away from the kid Dean had known all his life as he could possibly imagine. He could feel himself shivering, wondering how did that happen, when did he lose his brother._  
_“In you”_  
_They were standing in front of a blonde man, Sam’s expression was determinate, cold. He looked like a machine holding a massive power in itself. Dean almost feared he could blow up any moment._  
_“We will always end up… Here”_  
_Sam was not Sam, Sam was smirking and beating him, Sam was laughing but he didn’t sound like Sam, Sam was gone. Gone, gone, gone._  
   
   
   
-  
   
   
“Do you ever wonder why all this shit is happening?” Dean asked, looking up from the cards to meet Gabriel’s eyes. The man didn’t seem too interested in the conversation: he didn’t stop staring at his cards, avoiding looking at Dean in the eye. The Winchester saw it as an indication that he actually cared about the subject.  
“What does it matter? We are here anyway” Gabriel replied.  
Dean decided that he didn’t want to play anymore and he put his cards on the table.  
“Many people are dying because of something we don’t know anything about. Had we something to blame, maybe we could stop it”  
“You are saying all this philosophical shit just ‘cause you were losing” Gabriel pointed out, jokingly frowning.  
“Dude” Dean said, half-smiling but trying to let him know that he actually wanted to discuss this. He had the feeling that Gabriel knew more than he wanted him to believe. Maybe he was an hunter: it would have made sense with the way he fought. If he wasn’t, Dean was almost tempted to tell him. It was unlikely that he would have thought him to be crazy, since what was happening could hardly be thought to be something natural: Dean wasn’t an expert, but those waves of power generating earthquakes and all that problems looked like a real Apocalypse and he couldn’t help thinking that the spreading of the Croatoan virus wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe, whatever was responsible for all that destruction was also the “creator” of the virus. Maybe it had something to with demons, even if he hadn’t come across a supernatural being since all that started.  
“Easy there, tiger, I’m pretty sure your brain isn’t suited to thinking that much. It physically pains me to watch you trying” Gabriel teased him. _He’s avoiding the subject_.  
“It amazes me that you can even _recognize_ the act of thinking” Dean replied “And you are not answering”  
Gabriel smirked, giving up on the game as well and sitting in a more comfortable position.  
“It probably has something to do with an angry demon or supernatural stuff like that” he answered, as if it was no big deal. Dean noticed the glimpse of guilt in his eyes before he actually realized what he had said.  
“You-” he asked, taken aback “Are you an hunter too?”  
“More or less” Gabriel answered “And before you ask, I know you are thanks to your tattoo. Pretty clever, by the way”  
“It’s was-” _Sam’s idea_. “necessary. Wait- How did you see that? You never saw me naked”  
“Calm down, big boy, you were changing your t-shirt and I saw it” Gabriel smirked. It wasn’t like Dean thought that he had taken his clothes off during the night or something, but the idea of Gabriel seeing him without his shirt felt… Strange. It was like when, back when he was a kid, his dad took him to shoot and he felt like he was facing some kind of a test.  
“And you were watching me” Dean pointed out, raising his eyebrow.  
“You were right in front of me, but if you wish I will turn whenever you take your clothes off in my presence, my lady” Gabriel mocked him, with a bow.  
Before Dean could answer, his attention was caught by the boy, whose name he find out was Rick, who apparently wasn’t sleeping too well: he was shivering and moaning something. Probably a nightmare.  
Dean couldn’t count all the times Sam looked as fragile as him: he remembered too well how scared his brother’s wide eyes looked when he woke him up; when Sam recognized him, though, he always seemed to calm down a little.  
Dean stood up and reached for his own blanket, to put it on Rick to make him feel a little warmer. He stroked the boy’s hair, letting himself believe that he had turned back time, then the moment was gone and, when Rick stopped being Sam, Dean realized how stupid he probably looked and took a couple of steps back from the bed.  
“I’m going to sleep” he announced, turning to face Gabriel. The man raised an eyebrow.  
“Without a blanket?” he asked.  
“I’m not cold” Dean lied: the refuge was anything but warm. Anyway, he could work something out: it wasn’t like he had never slept in the backseat of his car using his jacket as a blanket.  
“Liar” Gabriel pointed out. Dean sent him a “go fuck yourself” look, settling on his bed with his arms crossed and turning his back on Gabriel.  
It took only a couple of seconds before he felt a blanket put over him and someone pushing him to make room in the bed.  
“What the fuck, dude?” Dean snapped, turning to face Gabriel only to almost make him fall off the bed. The man shrugged.  
“You are not gonna freeze to death here and I’m not gonna freeze either just ‘cause you enjoy sacrificing yourself for a kid you barely know the name of” he explained.  
“I wouldn’t die” Dean pointed out. Without even realizing it, he moved towards his left to make a little more room for Gabriel.  
“But you would catch a cold or a flu and I will not make you soup” Gabriel replied. Dean could feel his cheeks burn: he had done something like that only with Sam, with John when he was a kid and with some women. Sam and Dad were family, with women he would say goodbye to the following morning it was easy, because of the connection they shared during sex that made it feel natural, but with Gabriel it was… Odd. Embarrassing. Dangerous, because it could have been material for jokes. Of course, Dean could reply in that case, but Gabriel seemed comfortable with it, while he would probably blush like an inexperienced teenager only thinking about it.  
“Come on, Dean-o, I will even let you be the big spoon if you want” Gabriel said, smirking and looking really pleased by the situation and his reaction. Fuck it, Dean needed to play it cool.  
“Alright” he said. “But if you start snoring, I’ll push you on the ground”  
“I don’t snore, I breathe heavily” Gabriel replied, basically jumping on Dean’s chest and using it as a pillow.  
Dean did nothing more than mumbling a weak “’Night”, because it was beyond embarrassing and the impact prevented him to breath for a couple of seconds.  
   
   
   
-  
   
   
_“So this is me- standing up”_  
_Looking at Gabriel made him feel sick. He knew that it was his own fault, that he could have just shut up and nothing would have happened._ Other people would have died, it was the right call, Dean _. Except it wasn’t, because he was still walking and would have able to kill other innocents._  
_“Lucy. I’m home”_  
_The only dead body in the room was Gabriel’s. Because of him._  
_“Guard this with your life” Their fingers touched for a couple of seconds. It wasn’t even an actual touch, Dean could barely feel the heat of Gabriel’s skin before it was over. Before_ he _was gone._  
_“Dean- you were right”_  
_“I-” he tried to speak, but the words refused to come out of his mouth._  
_“I was afraid to stand up to my brother”_  
_“Gabriel-”_  
_“Dean”_  
_“I’m-”_  
_“You were right”_  
_“-sorry”_  
_“Dean”_  
   
“You know, it’s kind of annoying when your pillow moves and speaks”  
It took Dean a couple of seconds to focus and realize who was speaking and what was happening: he was lying in a bed in a military refuge, Gabriel was using him as a pillow and there was an Apocalypse going on outside.  
Before he could think about anything else to say, he whispered: “Sorry”  
Dean could feel his heart beating too fast, and considering that Gabriel’s head was on his chest, he certainly could hear it as well.  
“I was expecting something like ‘then you shouldn’t sleep on humans’, but, alright, I accept your apology” Gabriel said, too formal to be serious. Dean had to admit that, hadn’t he been shaken by that fucking dream, he probably would have said something like that. “Come on, go back to sleep. _Peacefully_ this time”  
Dean wanted to reply that it fucking wasn’t up to him and that if it annoyed him that much he could go away with is stupid blanket, but instead he closed his eyes, like someone was dragging him back into the dark.  
   
   
   
-  
   
   
He woke up to a distant mixture of voices.  
He inhaled, turning under the blanket he had wrapped on himself, and immediately perceived a sense of danger. His trained body allowed him to immediately split into action, his hand already reaching for the gun and his eyes open wide. But when he looked up, he saw nothing but Rick and Gabriel talking.  
The man noticed he was awake and greeted him: “Morning, sunshine. Did you sleep well?”  
“You snored” was the first reply Dean could think of.  
“I don’t snore, _I breathe heavily_ ” Gabriel claimed again. Well, he may have not snored that night – Dean hadn’t been awake to be sure of that – but he did snore before. Pretty loudly even. But he decided not to start that again.  
“Do we have any food left?” Dean asked, sitting on the bed.  
“Tuna. I bet you don’t want it for breakfast. I was talking about it with Ricky, weren’t I?” Gabriel smirked, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Rick seemed taken aback for a second, then he smiled and nodded.  
“Then I guess we’ll have to go looking for some decent food” Dean said, caressing his face with his hand. He just wanted to sleep for a decade at least, was it too much to ask for?  
   
   
-  
   
“So… What do you want to do with the kid?”  
Dean looked up from the expired cereals box, confused. “What do you mean? We are bringing him to that uncle he was talking about”  
Gabriel looked at him like he was the stupidest human being in the entire world. “We are in the middle of a goddamned _Apocalypse_ , you idiot. What chances are there that the guy is even alive?”  
Dean hated it, but he was right. Anyway, they didn’t have much of a choice. “What are gonna do then? Drop him somewhere with a gun? Keep him with us while we just walk around the country waiting for something to happen?”  
“The last one doesn’t sound too appealing, but I think it’s the best solution. We could start moving towards Topeka, for example, and go on like this”  
Gabriel was shrugging, suggesting it like it was no big deal. Dean took it as a clear indication that there was a reason if he was saying so.  
“Why should we move in a random city, instead of trying to go where we could find Rick’s uncle? There is no difference for us”  
“I come from Lecompton, alright?” Gabriel said, angrily “If the boy’s uncle was there, he has turned into one of those monsters or he is dead. It was a mess there”  
Dean could tell that something was off. There wasn’t a clear indication on Gabriel’s face, nothing in his body language suggested it, it was just a gut feeling, one of those bitches that you are not too willing to trust but that are usually right.  
“We still owe him a try” Dean pointed out.  
“We owe him nothing!” Gabriel replied “If anything, _he_ is the one who owes us. _We_ saved him”  
_But I didn’t save his family. I should have saved them too_. Dean couldn’t help thinking.  
“Oh, come on, don’t give me that sad-hero-puppy-look!” Gabriel exclaimed, dramatically raising his hands in surrender. “There was no way you could have saved his family, don’t be an idiot”  
A part of Dean knew that Gabriel was right and that they probably had died before he had even noticed the building, but there was still this feeling, this knowledge that he could have done more, that he _should_ have done more. Also, every time he couldn’t save someone, he felt like he was failing Sam all over again.  
He realized he needed his brother by his side. He needed him to do research on his laptop in the middle of the night, to bitch about how stupid he was and how the backseat of the car smelled like sex because he’s an idiot. He simply needed Sam beside him, sharing his motel room, laughing at his stupid jokes, needing his protection.  
“Okay, listen:” Gabriel took him away from his own thoughts. “we can do it your way, if you want. We’ll bring the kid to his damn uncle and hope that we can drop him there. But stop looking at me like you are a teenage girl in the middle of a life crisis”  
“I am not the one who wanted to cuddle last night” Dean pointed out. Only after he had spoken he realized how natural it had been to tease him about what happened last night, despite his conviction that he would have felt uneasy only thinking about it. Now that he couldn’t feel Gabriel breathing on his neck, it was much easier to laugh about it.  
Gabriel smirked. “Touché”  
   
   
-  
   
   
It wasn’t like there were no cars around the city, but basically all of them had been destroyed by the attacks. Dean wanted to scream in frustration, thinking that he should have sent Gabriel to look for a car instead of letting him look for food with Rick.  
After he had told the boy that they were bringing him to his uncle, Rick’s smile warmed Dean’s heart up: he smiled back at his thank yous, not pushing him away when the kid went for a hug. He was tiny and trembling, just like Sam had been before he became taller than him. _I can still kick your ass_ , Dean had told him far more times than he could count.  
“Oh, come on” Dean sighed, when a car which seemed intact had its back basically destroyed. He needed _a damn car_ , just one, was it too much to ask for?  
He decided to start looking for garages, hoping that they had protected the cars from the attacks. _Yeah, sure, hope. Damn useless thing_.  
Dean noticed that the zone he was walking through seemed to have been victim of many attacks or a really close one, so almost all the houses were now debris. He had to go further away from the place he had arranged the meeting with Gabriel and Rick or go back to them, where the situation was less disastrous. He considered the first option, but he had no food nor water, it was hot and he would have had to walk – hopefully he would have had a car by then, but hope wasn’t of much use those days – back anyway, so he decided to just go back and look for a car there. Thank God he knew how to steal a car, or they would have had to walk forever.  
He had realized how far he had gone walking, busy as he was cursing against the heat, the Apocalypse and the broken cars, but now that he was looking for a specific place he felt like it was just running away from him, becoming farther as he walked towards it. It reminded him of a long ride on the Impala, when he was around six years old and couldn’t bring himself to sleep. The road seemed infinite and when his dad was asked if they had arrived yet the answer was always no. Dean remembered asking himself why wasn’t the road changing: wasn’t he supposed to see a city or something? No more fields, just a town, with people and motels to sleep in.  
Just like they finally reached the town that time, Dean reached a place not far from where he and his friends had parted. He considered calling them, but it would have been stupid: not only he had no idea what shop they had gone in, but he could have been heard from one of those ill people and he had no time for that shit. He needed to find a damn car and drive that kid to his uncle. _If he’s alive_ , he was reminded by a voice inside his head that suspiciously sounded like Gabriel.  
_Fuck you, he is alive. Gotta be_.  
He looked around to find out if those houses still standing appeared to have a garage, but he hadn’t walked much when he stumbled across something that almost made him fall on the ground.  
“What the-?” he cursed, struggling for a couple of seconds to stand again. When he felt confident on his feet, Dean looked down to find canned peas. Food. Who the Hell would-?  
_Fuck_. Dean quickly reached for his gun, his heart beating too fast as he cursed himself for going away. They should have stayed together, what was he thinking when he agreed that splitting up would be a good idea? That had never ended well with Sam, he should have known better.  
He only needed to run to the first turn to stumble across the first corpse. Thankfully, it wasn’t neither Gabriel nor Rick: just a random guy who had probably been infected by the Croatoan virus. There were others, around ten at a guess, and some food on the ground. Gabriel and Rick were among the other bodies, lying on the ground not far from each other.  
“Son of a bitch” Dean started running towards them. He noticed too much blood and a hole on Rick’s chest, along with the paleness of his skin. His brain registered him as dead without he actually realized it. He left the gun on the ground without a second thought as he kneeled beside Gabriel.  
“Come on, come on” he mouthed, as he searched for his heartbeat. He wasn’t even sure that he knew what he was doing: the only thing he could think about were prayers to nobody and those dreams that had been hunting him lately. The guilt and helplessness he remembered feeling at the sight of Gabriel’s winged corpse were hitting him even harder now, because there were no wings and that was no dream.  
When he felt the heartbeat under his fingers, he was so damn relieved that for a second he feared he could start crying. “Gab- Gabe” he called, gently hitting his face “Come on, man, wake up”  
It took a few moments for Gabriel to actually open his eyes. He seemed beyond confused and Dean immediately felt him grabbing his arm.  
“Are you okay?” the hunter asked, as Gabriel seemed to focus.  
“Yeah- I’m alright” he answered, sitting as Dean left him more room to breathe. The Winchester felt like he could start breathing again. _Fuck_. “Don’t you ever do that again, you piece of shit. Or I’m gonna kill you”  
Gabriel was caressing the back of his head, trying to hide a pained expression, but he smirked anyway and he seemed himself, at least. “I don’t know, Dean-o. You looked rather worried about me”  
“I just don’t like the silence” Dean replied, with a weak smile.  
“Yeah. Me neither”  
Dean made the mistake to look at Rick’s direction, only to find the confirm of what he had seen as he run towards them. Anyway, he needed to be sure of it, but before he could stand up Gabriel grabbed him by the wrist.  
“He’s dead” he said “He was stabbed in the chest, I saw it. And we need to leave now”  
Dean wanted to argue that they had to at least bury him, because that boy couldn’t just be left there to rot, because he had to be still alive anyway, because there was no way Dean had failed another Sam. Still, he said nothing: he was fully aware that Gabriel was right and that if other monsters had come his friend probably wouldn’t have been able to help too much.  
“Alright” he forced himself to answer “Let’s go then”  
Dean stood up first, taking his gun back, and then reached for Gabriel to help him on his feet. As he was expecting, the man attempted to protest: “I can walk by myself”  
“Just a minute ago you were unconscious. Don’t be a baby”  
“But I am _your_ baby” Gabriel smirked, adding a wink for good measure.  
   
   
   
-  
   
“It was my idea” Gabriel suddenly pointed out. Dean had said nothing on the matter: he was just walking up and down the shop they had momentarily hidden in, trying to focus on the car they needed to find instead of what happened. It wasn’t working too well. “I was the one who suggested to split, so this is my fault. Not yours”  
Dean couldn’t help glaring at him. He didn’t want to hear that bullshit: he had agreed, so he was as much responsible as Gabriel. Not to mention that _he_ was the one who saved that kid and wanted to help him, so it was kind of his responsibility to protect him.  
“Hey, don’t look at me like that” Gabriel said “You are the one who claimed to not like silence”  
Dean opened his mouth to reply, then he closed it. He realized he really didn’t want to talk about Rick. At all. “How are you?” he asked instead.  
“Fine” Gabriel answered. Dean was amazed and relieved that he didn’t address his lame attempt at changing the subject. “Have you found a car?”  
“No. I came back because the farther you go from here the less there is left to see or steal” Dean explained, distractingly playing with a big green hat a manikin was wearing.  
“Then we should find one and leave” Gabriel said, standing up as if he was ready to go. Dean wanted to hear none of that.  
“Sit down” he commanded, pushing him back on the chair. “You were hit in the head, you are not going anywhere”  
His dad had taught him a lot, and among other things he had talked to him a lot of times about how to deal with an head trauma. He remembered that once it had happened to Sam while they were playing outside of their motel room: that night John had explained to him that they had to wake Sam up every now and then to make sure that he didn’t fall into a coma. Dean had been ordered to go to sleep because his dad could take care of it on his own, but he had insisted to keep him company and watch over Sam as well.  
Dean himself had been hit in the head more than once.  
“Are you feeling dizzy?” he asked.  
Gabriel dramatically rolled his eyes. “I am _fine_. I’m telling you we need to go”  
“Why?” Dean asked. It seemed important for him to go away as fast as possible, but the hunter really couldn’t understand why. Of course, they had been attacked and more Croats, or whatever you want to call them, could come any moment, but they were hidden in a shop, all they had to do was making sure not to be seen.  
“Are you kidding me?” Gabriel replied “Have you seen what happened or not?”  
“Yes, I have. But it could happen in any city we chose to move in”  
“Not on the open road though”  
Alright, he had a point here. Still, Dean didn’t want to move him too much and he had no intention to leave him there alone.  
“We have to stay here at least tonight” he announced.  
“It’s like two in the afternoon!” Gabriel protested “We can’t just stay here looking at each other in the eye”  
“You can’t be moved now”  
“I _can_ ” Gabriel insisted “Come on, I don’t even feel dizzy or sick, why should we waste time here? Plus, I have seen a car not far away from here”  
Dean was going to argue again that he’d rather not move him from there at least for a while, but then his brain registered what Gabriel had just said.  
“You found- Why the fuck did you send me to look for a damn car then?!” He’d be better not have walked all that time under the sun uselessly or he was actually going to kill that idiot sitting in front of him.  
“Relax, I found it after you were gone” Gabriel smirked “Anyway, we get it and we go away. Then you can play the nurse as much as you want to”  
“It’s not my fault if you are an idiot who can’t help getting hit in the head”  
“And you are a jerk with no respect for poor ill guys”  
“Bitch” Dean replied before he could think about it. It was a reflex, something he was so used to do that it didn’t even require thinking. As soon as he realized what he had just said, he felt sick.  
There was a pause, then Dean finally said: “Alright, we’ll do as you want. But if you feel bad you have to tell me or I’ll cut your legs”  
“Then you’d have to carry me” Gabriel pointed out, not seeming too contrary at the idea.  
“At least you would be less annoying”  
“Yeah, sure, dream about it”  
   
-  
   
“It’s there” Gabriel pointed with the finger. He had said nothing about it, but Dean had noticed that he was looking around them worryingly and carefully, as if trying to catch something. It was probably due to what happened before, so the hunter chose to not address it. They were going to leave anyway.  
The car seemed intact and ready to go, there was some blood in the backseat though: Dean tried to not pay much attention to it. As the hunter struggled with the car to make it work, Gabriel was standing outside, looking nervous. “Are you done yet?”  
“Not yet. And shut up: you aren’t making it any easier” Dean replied.  
Gabriel snorted.  
“Oh, look at what I’ve found” said a voice, immediately catching Dean’s attention. In less than a second, he saw Gabriel being thrown away by something invisible. He called out his name, jumping out of the car as his brain considered the possibility that it was a ghost or a demon.  
He felt an hand on his shoulder and he immediately turned around, pointing his gun at the stranger’s nose.  
“Hello, Dean” said a boy with a calm smile on his face “What a pleasure to finally meet you again”  
“Who are you?” Dean asked, almost screamed, trying to look at Gabriel with the corner of eye and keeping an eye on the stranger at the same time.  
“What do you mean?” the boy asked “Do you not remember who I am?”  
“I have never met you in my whole life. Trust me, I wouldn’t forget a creepy like you” Dean replied. His hands were steady on the gun and he was calm. It was just another hunt, another monster. The fact that he claimed to know him and the feeling that he was right didn’t matter.  
   
_“You will say yes, Dean. Sooner or later, you will accept me, as it is your destiny and you cannot run away from it. From me”_  
_There was blood in his mouth, his knees ached, his chest was on fire and his hands were gripping the wet ground so tight it hurt._  
_“Screw you, Michael”_  
   
“Michael” he whispered. The boy smiled softly.  
“Then you do remember me” Michael said. He put his hand on Dean’s gun and lowered it. As a reflex, Dean shot him in the chest, only to find out that the creature was still healthy and smiling at him. _Great, how the fuck do I kill this thing?_ He wondered, taking a step back as he reached for Ruby’s knife.  
“Are you a demon?” he asked, half waiting for the creature’s eyes to become black in a blink.  
Michael smiled again in that way that would have looked fatherly hadn’t it been so creepy. “I am better than that”  
“Back off, Michael” Gabriel said, approaching them from behind. In a second, he was in front of Dean, just an inch away from the monster. The hunter grabbed his arm, thinking that he was an idiot unarmed who should have let him take care of it. Gabriel ignored him.  
“Gabriel” Michael said “I sincerely hope you don’t think you can win. Lucifer killed you, and his vessel was far weaker than mine”  
Lucifer? What was that guy even talking about? What did it mean that Satan _killed_ Gabriel?  
   
_It wasn’t difficult to find him: he was lying on the floor, in the same room he had fought Lucifer in – in the same room Dean had pushed him in; he wouldn’t have chosen to fight, hadn’t it been for Dean -, his wings imprinted on the floor as a concrete proof of his death._  
_“Fuck” Dean murmured. His hands were trembling a little, maybe his whole body was shaking, and his eyes refused to move away from the corpse lying on the floor._ Your fault, your fault, your fault _._  
   
“I won’t make the same mistake again” Gabriel replied.  
“Neither will I” Michael claimed. Then, Dean felt like an invisible hand was gripping his stomach tight and squeezing it. He tried to breathe, but all he managed to do was coughing and falling on his knees with a moan.  
Gabriel turned towards him, his eyes wide open and Dean’s name on his lips. Then Michael tried to stab him with a silver blade. Gabriel managed to move away from it at the last second, while Dean struggled to get up despite the pain and the blood in his mouth.  
   
_“This is your destiny. It’s you and me. It’s the way it has to be. It’s always been. You will have to accept it, sooner or later”_  
_“Go to Hell, you winged son of a bitch”_  
   
“Come on, Mikey, I am sure you can do better than this” Dean heard Gabriel mocking. As disturbing as it was, they sounded like two brothers having a fight.  
   
_“And Dean- you were right. I was afraid to stand up to my brother”_  
   
Dean shut his eyes, trying to convince himself to ignore the pain and try to be useful, when Gabriel fell in front of him. He opened his eyes to see him smiling in a reassuring way and winking. Gabriel placed two fingers on his forehead and Dean was thrown in a working washing machine.  
The last think he heard was an angry scream.  
   
-  
   
“Hey there, look who is finally awake” Gabriel said, as soon as Dean opened his eyes.  
“What the fuck-?” the hunter whispered, remembering the pain at the stomach that now seemed to be gone and the terrible sensation that drove him to unconsciousness. “What the fuck happened?”  
Dean sat on the bed he was lying on. They were in what looked like a small house with only one room. It was fancy.  
“What do you remember?” Gabriel asked.  
“That you _fucking throw me into a washing machine_ ” Dean snapped. Then he realized that Gabriel had touched his forehead and he had been teleported away from the fight.  
“What are you?” he asked, looking for his gun. He couldn’t find it.  
“It’s there” Gabriel pointed out, showing him a little table beside the bed “But it won’t be useful, anyway”  
“Answer my question” Dean replied, feeling his eyes burn with anger. What was he thinking when he trusted a complete stranger? Had he forgotten that anyone could be a monster in disguise? He should have dumped him as soon as he found out that he knew about the supernatural. But the thing is that he was alone and Gabriel was so similar to him and funny – even if annoying – to have around that he didn’t even think about the possibility that he could be dangerous. What an idiot he had been.  
But actually- Gabriel hadn’t harmed him, had he? He had saved him, if anything. Still, he was a monster, he shouldn’t have trusted him – he could almost feel Sam slapping him in the back of his head, saying that the world wasn’t black and white and not all the monsters were evil.  
“Gabriel. Answer me” he insisted.  
“I guess I could just do it again” Gabriel started talking with himself instead “But it would be too dangerous, it could damage you”  
“ _Gabriel_ , for fuck’s sake. What’s going on?” Dean wanted to be listened to, he wanted answers, _now_. Because he wanted so bad to believe that Gabriel wasn’t dangerous, that he was one of those “good monsters” his brother was always babbling about, but he needed something convincing. Or at least _something_. Anything.  
“What do you remember?” Gabriel asked again.  
“How about you answer my question first” Dean suggested, crossing his arms.  
Gabriel sighed. “I won’t harm you, Dean”  
“That’s not what I asked” _I know. I don’t know how, but I know_.  
Gabriel nodded. “Alright, I guess it’s too late now to back off” He snapped his fingers and everything came back. Just like an imaginary wall had been destroyed, all the memories started to wave around Dean’s head like they had never been gone.  
   
_The taste of his blood, the pain in his chest as he watched the corpses on the ground, everything was waving around in his head, each sorrow was just a fact he was kind of suited to. He opened his mouth to grasp as much air as possible, as he desperately looked at the corpse wearing a trenchcoat, half-expecting him to resurrect any moment._  
_“Are you ready?” a voice asked, as a pale boy with a blank face approached him. He knew very well that he wasn’t going to say yes, he remembered his own determination, but right now nothing seemed to matter. What was he fighting for?_  
_There was a tall guy, standing some feet away from them: he was calm, quiet, as if he was waiting for them to be done._ I know you are in there, Sammy, please, fight him, I know you can, I believe in you.  
_“Are you going to say yes, Dean?” the pale boy asked, getting closer. Dean had no time to answer, because he felt someone gripping him from behind._  
_“It seems like you owe me one, Deano”_  
   
_-_  
   
_“What the Hell just happened?” Dean asked, forcing himself to get the voice out. He realized Gabriel was carrying him like he was his fucking bride, walking through a lawn in the middle of nowhere. “Let me-” Dean tried to protest, but a cough interrupted him._  
_“You can guess the answer is no, Dean-o”_  
_It was only then that Dean actually realized_ who _was carrying him and that that son of a bitch was supposed to be dead._  
_“You-” he tried to snap at him, angry because a fucking archangel by their side would have been useful, because he left them with the mission of collecting all the rings to open Lucifer’s cage, because he let him feel fucking guilty for what happened to him while he was actually safe and sound hiding somewhere._  
_“Yeah, you’ll curse at me later. Now sleep”_  
_He touched his forehead and Dean felt the dark grabbing him._  
   
_-_  
   
_When he opened his eyes, the first thing he realized was that he had something cold resting on his forehead._  
_“Sam” he moaned, trying to tell him that it was too fucking cold and to take that thing away from him._  
_“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not your little brother” a voice answered. Dean’s eyes reacted, opening immediately to focus on Gabriel, sitting beside him. His hand tried to reach for a gun or a blade, something, but his arm was too slow, to heavy, and he barely managed to lift it, let alone grab a weapon._  
_“Stay still, you have a fever. Apparently, your body didn’t appreciate being tortured and then teleported miles away from that cemetery” Gabriel explained, pushing Dean’s chest to make him lay down again despite his weak attempt to stand up._  
_“Where’s Sam?” Dean asked, hating how low his voice was “And aren’t you supposed to be dead?!”_  
_“Sam is still with Lucifer” Gabriel quickly answered the first question. Dean knew it already, but he kind of hoped that he had been saved, somehow. Or that it was a dream and Sam would have come in any moment. “And I_ was _dead. Someone brought me back”_  
_“Who?” Dean asked._  
_“My father. Maybe” Dean highly doubted that God would bother helping them at this point, but he kept that for himself._  
_“What about Cas and Bobby?” he asked. He remembered them both exploding in an attempt to help him gaining a moment to talk with his brother. Fuck those spoiled angels._  
_“There was no one there. Only you. I assume they are dead” Gabriel answered. For a second, Dean wanted to slap him, because Castiel was his brother and he was supposed to be sad, not to talk about his_ death _like it was no big deal, but he knew that guy, it was like looking in a mirror, so he was aware that the way the archangel’s eyes quickly shifted out of the window was a way to hide his pain._  
_“I need to go back there. I have to talk with Sam” Dean tried to stand up again, only to be pushed back by Gabriel._  
_“Stay still” he repeated, far less patiently than the first time “You are acting like a five year old”_  
_“Oh, excuse me if I don’t want to ‘stay still’ while my brother is possessed by Satan and the world is destroyed by those self-centred assholes who happen to be your brothers” Dean replied, sarcastically “And you are a fucking archangel, can’t you just use your mojo to heal me?”_  
_“First of all, if I did you would run away and screw something up. But I can’t, anyway”_  
_“Why the Hell not?”_  
_“I have just been brought back to life, jackass, I am not at my 100%. I had to bring you away from there and fix the biggest damage in your body, you can take care of the fever yourself while I recharge”_  
_Gabriel removed his hand from Dean’s chest, probably thinking that he finally got it and he wouldn’t  attempt to run away from there. Dean decided to humour him, at least for a while._  
_“Where are we?” he asked._  
_“Somewhere safe” Gabriel answered, relaxing on the chair he was sitting on._  
_“Oh, yeah, that answers my question” Dean replied, sarcastically._  
_“Technically, it does” Gabriel smirked._  
_Dean wished to stab him in the chest, even if it wouldn’t harm him. This made him think about Castiel, their first meeting, and how he died for him again in the end. Stupid son of bitch._  
_“You should sleep” Gabriel pointed out “Not that I don’t find your company delightful, but it would be a good idea”_  
_“I don’t need to sleep” Dean protested. What if Michael came back while he was asleep?_  
_“Shut up, you do”_  
   
_-_  
   
_“What is this crap?!” Dean almost screamed, disgusted._  
_“Has no one ever made you soup when you were sick?” Gabriel asked, raising his eyebrow._  
_“My father always made me soup when I was sick,_ but it didn’t smell like vomit _”_  
_“That hurt my feelings” Gabriel said, dramatically placing his hand on his heart. Dean rolled his eyes._  
_“Dude, just snap your fingers and make something that I can eat without puking”_  
_“It took me hours to cook this-” Gabriel complained, acting far too much offended to believable._  
_“_ Gabriel _” Dean said, exasperated._  
_“Alright, alright” the archangel smirked “But this is the only soup I know, so you’ll have to go for it”_  
_“Then I’ll starve” Dean replied, stubborn, crossing his arms._  
_“I can do the airplane spoon thing, if you want” Gabriel winked._  
_“I can throw this thing all over you face, if you want” Dean replied._  
_“I was just trying to be nice. You are evil” Gabriel sniffed, hiding his face behind his hand as he dramatically sobbed and Dean rolled his eyes once again. Then, after a couple of seconds, Gabriel dropped the act “Seriously, you should eat it. It does miracles”_  
_Dean sighed._  
   
_-_  
   
_“Why does Michael still need me?” Dean asked._  
_It was night and he was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, unable and unwilling to sleep. How could he, with his brother out there being Lucifer’s meatsuit and two angels walking around his planet?_  
_“You are his vessel” Gabriel answered. He always sat on that chair next to Dean’s bed, recharging as the hunter healed. Dean wondered how much energy he had wasted to heal all his wounds._  
_“Adam should work too” Dean replied “I thought he didn’t need me anymore”_  
_“He wouldn’t, hadn’t it been for Sam. Lucifer has his true vessel, so, as it is now, he is more powerful than Michael. He needs you to win against his brother”_  
_“And what if I don’t say yes?” Dean asked “There will be no Apocalypse?”_  
_There was a moment of silence._  
_“Yes” Gabriel answered. Dean couldn’t see his face, but he knew that tone of voice._  
_“You are lying to me” he stated. It wasn’t even a question: he didn’t need confirm of what he already knew. “I want the truth, Gabriel”_  
_“Trust me, you don’t” The archangel was probably smiling with sadness, an half-smirk that didn’t hold any happiness in itself._  
_“I believe I do” Dean replied “Please” It was much easier to beg in the dark of the night, when the shadows covered his face and his shame. It was much easier to feel protected and not vulnerable against the archangel’s judgment._  
_Gabriel sighed. “They would keep fighting. Michael would keep looking for you and postponing the final battle, until…”_  
_“Until?”_  
_“Until the world would be destroyed by their fights”_  
_Dean didn’t answer. He had always thought that he could run away from his ‘destiny’ that he would have had a choice on the matter, that nothing could have made him do what he didn’t want to. Apparently, he would have had to say yes, in the end, or he wouldn’t have a world to fight for anymore._  
_“I have to find Michael then” he said. What did he have left, anyway? Sam was already gone._  
_“Not necessarily” Gabriel replied, quickly “The original plan can still work. We can still send Lucifer back in the cage”_  
_“And what about Michael?” Dean replied._ What about Sam?  
_“We can take care of him as well, I guess”_  
_Dean couldn’t help thinking that that plan sucked. Even if it had been successful, the perspective of a life in world half-destroyed by angels’ fights and without his brother didn’t seem better than becoming Michael’s meatsuit._  
_“But if I said yes, Michael would kill Lucifer, wouldn’t he?”_  
_“Probably” Gabriel answered._  
_“And what about Sam?”_  
_“He would die as well”_  
_So he would have gone to Heaven. He would have forever lived in those memories of happiness they had once seen. It sounded much better than the idea of him being closed in a cage in Hell._  
_“You are not going to say yes, Dean, are you?” Gabriel asked. Dean almost smiled at the thought that Sam once asked him the same thing. He had lied then._  
_“I don’t know” he answered truthfully this time. He knew that Sam would have tried to stop him had he showed the slightest doubt, even if it had meant tying him at a chair, but Gabriel? Gabriel just wanted it all to be over, what could he possibly care about his well-being?_  
Except he saved you _. “Why did you do that?” Dean asked._  
_“What?” Gabriel replied. Dean had the feeling that he was playing dumb to have some room to think about an answer._  
_“Saving me. From Michael” he clarified._  
_“I am still rooting for you. I don’t particularly like to be wrong” Gabriel replied._  
_Dean nodded, sure that the archangel would have seen him._  
_“Goodnight”_  
_“Goodnight, Dean-o”_  
_“Stop calling me that”_  
_“Never, Dean-o”_  
   
_-_  
   
_“Oh, your first steps” Gabriel commented, pretending to wipe away the tears from his eyes has Dean got up from the bed for the first time since they had gotten in that house. “It’s_ so _touching”_  
_“You are_ such _an idiot” Dean replied, stretching his muscles and hoping to not fall on the ground like a fool._  
_“Don’t worry, I’m ready to catch you” Gabriel reassured him, and it would have been polite from him, hadn’t he used that ‘I-am-your-mighty-knight-ready-to-serve-you-my-lady’ mocking tone._  
_“I am thinking about torturing you for fun” Dean warned him._  
_“_ Or _we can play doctor and patient” Gabriel winked._  
   
_-_  
   
_“I feel much better” Dean said, standing in front of Gabriel._  
_“You look kinda pale still” the archangel pointed out._  
_“I am good” Dean insisted “I want to go back”_  
_Gabriel looked at him for a couple of seconds, then his eyes drifted away from him. “I am not ready to teleport you away from here”_  
_“Then I’m gonna walk” Dean replied. There was nothing that could keep him from going back to his brother. He had decided to say yes to Michael: it just seemed like the best option he had, for the sake of everyone. Of Sam._  
_“You can’t”_  
_“Why? Where are we?”_  
_“It doesn’t matter. Just wait another day and I will bring you back”_  
_“People are dying, Gabriel” Dean said, frustrated “I can’t just sit here and pretend nothing is happening, I_ have _to do something”_  
_“And what are you going to do, exactly?” Gabriel replied. His voice had raised a little: he seemed angry “Are you going to sacrifice yourself to Michael like the stupid hero you are?”_  
_“Last time I checked, you were the one who sacrificed himself to let us escape” Dean replied. It was a low bow, considering also that he was the one who had convinced Gabriel to fight._  
_“That’s different. I had a chance to survive, you don’t”_  
_“What am I supposed to do then? Put my brother in Lucifer’s cage? Is this what you’re asking me?” Dean screamed. He couldn’t do that. He had agreed with Sam to let him take this decision, but now that he knew that the world was already suffering and that he could stop it while also saving Sam’s life… He wouldn’t waste that opportunity._  
_“I’m not asking you anything”_  
_“Why are we arguing then?”_  
_“Because you are an idiot”_  
_Dean looked at him for a couple of seconds, feeling the anger going away to be replaced by something else. Resignation. Understanding. Sadness. “Takes one to know one” he smiled._  
_Gabriel smiled back._  
   
_-_  
   
_“Dean”_  
_“What?”_  
_He was trying to sleep, since that probably would have been his last night, but apparently Gabriel didn’t want to let him be. Thinking about it, sleeping during his last night on Earth probably wasn’t the best idea, but it was all Dean felt like doing at the moment._  
_“Are you going to say yes?”_  
_Dean was sure that Gabriel already knew the answer._  
_“Yes” Then he added: “I can’t just let my brother spend eternity in a cage with Lucifer. I can’t”_  
_“I get it”_  
_Maybe he really did, after all. Gabriel had brothers he seemed to love much, to the point that he spent centuries as a Trickster to not see them fight. He loved them so much, but still he was brave enough to let them get what they deserved, because it was for the best. Dean admired him for that: he highly doubted that he would have been able to do it for Sam._  
_“It’s my last night on Earth and I’m gonna spend it_ sleeping _” Dean chuckled, even if there was nothing funny about it._  
_“We could have wild sex” Gabriel shrugged._  
_Dean basically jumped on his bed, suddenly sitting. “What?!”_  
_“Relax, Dean-o” Gabriel laughed “I was just kidding. But we can have fun anyway”_  
_With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel turned on the lights – Dean felt like he had just seen an angel’s true form – and made appear a big TV, with pop corns and candies, to eat something while they watched it._  
_“Wow” was Dean’s comment._  
_“We can have a Doctor Sexy MD marathon, if you wish” Gabriel offered, with a smirk._  
_“Man, where have you been all my life?” Dean asked, with the biggest smile on his face as he took the remote._  
_“In a brothel” Gabriel replied, making appear an apple pie too. Dean thought that, hadn’t he had to die the following day, he should have kept him in the backseat of the Impala._  
   
_-_  
   
_Dean woke up with his face pressed against Gabriel’s arm, because the previous night it had seemed rude to not invite him to sit on the bed and he fallen asleep at some point._  
_“Good morning, sunshine” Gabriel said, lightly. Dean’s head hurt – probably because he had slept no more than half an hour -, but still he managed to focus and remember what the Hell was happening._  
_“Are we going then?” Dean asked._  
_“You should have breakfast first. You know, your last meal” Gabriel suggested. Dean raised an eyebrow: he was too cheerful. Why was he taking it so well now? Previously they had argued about him saying yes to Michael, now Gabriel seemed almost happy to bring towards his end._  
_“What’s going on?” Dean asked._  
_“Nothing. Have breakfast, then we are going” Gabriel replied._  
_Dean wasn’t convinced, but after all he was basically a dead man walking, what did he care about what his death meant for a random archangel?_  
_Gabriel had made appear a rich breakfast for him and even if Dean had eaten the whole night, he tried everything._  
_“How was it?” Gabriel asked._  
_“Good” Dean replied “Can we go now?”_  
_Gabriel nodded, with a sight. And there went the cheerfulness. He was just pretending then. It probably wasn’t good of him, but Dean was kind of happy that Gabriel was a little upset by what he was going to do._  
_“Close your eyes” Gabriel said._  
_“Really?”_  
_“It’s better this way, trust me” Gabriel insisted._  
_Dean shrugged. “Alright”_  
_Gabriel placed an hand on Dean’s head. A whisper, “I’m sorry”, then pain_.  
   
   
   
“You-” Dean whispered, feeling his face literally burning with anger “ _You wiped out my memories_?!”  
“That’s what you should have seen, if everything went back to place” Gabriel shrugged. Dean was almost certain that he was going to kill him.  
“You made me forget everything?” Dean hissed. He was mad. How dare did he mess with his head? Who gave him the right to?  
“Not everything. I just cancelled the angels and put some new things here and there. Like Sam’s death. I’m sorry about that, by the way”  
Dean was going to kill him. Painfully. Slowly.  
“How could you do that?” he hissed, betrayal burning in his body. “Have you seen what happened to the world?!”  
“It was shitty before as well” Gabriel tried to say. Dean didn’t want him to joke now. This was deadly serious, he had no time for his mocking and there was no need to lighten the mood right now. He wanted to discuss this.  
“Stop it. Right now. How could you let those bastards kill so many people while also Satan happily walks _in my brother’s body_? I don’t even understand what good your decision did! Are you mad or what?!” Dean snapped.  
Gabriel, dropped the “it’s all a big joke, we need to laugh” act, seemed just as angry as him.  
“You world would have been half-destroyed anyway!” he pointed out.  
“Far less than this, had I said yes when I wanted to! How can you be so selfish?!”  
“The same way you can be so selfless. We need to compensate, you know”  
“No more jokes, I said” Dean hissed. Gabriel had no right to put what he wanted above the lives of so many. It wasn’t fair. “This is serious. I want you to bring me back to Michael. I’m gonna say yes and this is gonna be over”  
“I won’t let you do it” Gabriel said, crossing his arms and looking at him straight in the eye. Dean wanted to scream.  
“But why the fuck not?! What’s the fucking matter, what do you care?!”  
“You have no idea what would happen to you if you said yes” Gabriel hissed, angrily “You would become an empty body, you wouldn’t even be able to _talk_. It would be worse than dying, you dickhead”   
“I have seen another vessel after the angel left, Gabriel, I _know_ what happens” He still shivered when he thought about the boy sitting in the hospital room after Raphael had left his body.  “But it’s still better than constantly running while eating tuna and beans in the hope of not being caught by Michael, or than making my brother jump in _fucking Lucifer’s cage_ ”  
“I won’t let you do it” Gabriel said once again.  
“Then I’m gonna pray Michael to come here and I’ll say yes anyway” Dean hissed.  
“Dean-”  
“No, shut up. You shouldn’t have taken my memories from me. Why did you do it?” Dean was fucking angry, but he still wanted to understand. “What’s in for you?”  
“I wanted to prevent you from doing something stupid” Gabriel shrugged. In another circumstances, Dean would have smiled at how he was still playing it cool.  
“By doing something even more stupid in the process? It wasn’t the best idea” he replied.  
“Don’t do it” It sounded so much like a prayer – an angel praying: the world had been turned upside down – that Dean felt the anger slowly evaporate. But he still didn’t get it. Why was he fighting so hard for him to not do it? He thought that Gabriel didn’t do anything without a reason, a good one even, so what was so important about him not saying yes? Maybe he didn’t want his brother to die. Dean saying yes to Michael would have meant one of them killing the other – hopefully Michael killing Lucifer – and maybe Gabriel didn’t want to bury one of his brothers.  
“Why not?” he asked anyway.  
“You don’t deserve _that_ ” Gabriel finally said, after a moment of silence. Dean didn’t need to think before replying.  
“Neither does Sam”  
They stayed there, silently staring at each other. Gabriel was wearing no mask at all: every defending mechanism, every smile and joke he used to hide the truth was gone. For Dean it had always been rather easy to read him despite his armour; right now, he didn’t need to find anything, Gabriel’s defeated face was right there in front of him.  
Dean looked at him, silently.  
“I am scared too” he whispered after a couple of seconds more, as if trying to give him something back for sincerity.  
Gabriel smirked. “I know you are. You are quite a pussy sometimes”  
Dean chuckled. That was the last time they could tease each other, he realized.  
“Listen, Gabriel- You can go to Heaven, can’t you?”  
The archangel nodded.  
“After it’s over-” Dean began “Watch out for my little brother, alright? Make sure he is okay. Please”  
Gabriel stared at him for a couple of seconds, frowning. Then he answered: “Sure. But I want something in return”  
Dean was taken aback, but he figured he shouldn’t have been that surprised. “What?”  
“Before going, you have to watch a Doctor Sexy episode with me. Here” Gabriel explained, deadly serious. Dean didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or to cry.  
“Are you mad?” he asked, half smiling in disbelief “We are deciding the fate of the world here, and you want me to _watch TV_ with you?”  
Gabriel’s serious expression didn’t change. “That’s what I’ve just said”  
Dean opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before finally saying: “You are crazy”  
“And you are not the first one to tell me that. Do we have a deal?” Gabriel asked, offering his hand. Dean stared at him for a couple of seconds, before thinking ‘fuck it’, because it would have been the last episode he would ever watch, because Michael now was probably too busy looking for him to kill people, and he actually needed someone to keep an eye on Sam when he couldn’t, so…  
“Alright. But just one”  
   
They sat on the bed, again.  
This time, Gabriel didn’t ask for permission to settle beside him. Dean could feel that his muscles were tensed while the archangel turned on the TV and, after the show had already began, looking at Gabriel’s knee touching his own, the hunter whispered, trying to make it sound like a joke just in case: “It’s your turn to be the big spoon”  
There were a few moments of silence in which Dean cursed himself, then Gabriel chuckled. “I see the righteous man is worthy his reputation: I would have tried to trick you into being the little spoon again”  
Dean didn’t know what to reply.  
“Come here, big boy”  
Before he knew it, his head was resting on Gabriel’s chest and the archangel was playing with his hair, mumbling something about how he should have worn them longer because they were funnier to play with.  
“You should try with my brother then” Dean joked, only to regret it a second later “No, thinking about it, it’s disgusting. Don’t”  
“Well, his hair does look fun to play with” Gabriel thought out loud “But he is too tall for me”  
“Hey!” Dean snapped, offended “I am tall too!”  
“Sure thing, Dean-o, don’t get mad at me” Gabriel smirked, petting his head like he would with a dog.  
“Bite me”  
“If you wish”  
   
They didn’t even think about eating anything: neither of them felt like their stomach could handle anything solid, so they just lied there, silently watching a show none of them was paying attention too. Dean was too concentrated on Gabriel’s hand still playing with his hair: it was relaxing and it made him shiver in a pleasant way. He had to struggle to not close his eyes and fall asleep, because he wasn’t sure that Gabriel would have woken him up.  
“What are we, Gabe?” Dean asked, not even pretending to pay attention to the TV.  
“Two idiots with too many things in common” Gabriel replied after a couple of seconds. Dean smiled.  
“Yeah. Sounds accurate”  
   
-  
   
Dean put his jacket on, wondering if there was something stuck in his chest because he found it difficult to breathe.  
“Do you know where Michael is?” he asked, looking at Gabriel, who was still sitting on the bed and staring blankly at him.  
“I don’t need to. I’ll bring you in a desert and you will pray to him” he explained.  
Dean nodded. “Sounds about right”  
Gabriel stood up, walking towards him. When Dean was asked if he was ready, he just nodded, because he didn’t feel like finding the voice to lie. He hated the feeling to be pushed into a washing machine, but when he was with someone else it was less terrible and at least he had something to hold on to while his world shifted.  
The wasteland Dean found himself in the middle of seemed like the perfect background for one of those Western movies he liked so much to watch. He wondered if Gabriel liked them too.  
“Call him whenever you want” Gabriel told him. Dean noticed how inexpressive he was and thought about how vulnerable he had looked earlier, when he had prayed him not to do it.  
“I’m sorry that one of your brothers is gonna get killed” Dean said. And he truly was.  
“Don’t worry about it” Gabriel reassured him, half smiling “I have made my peace with that”  
“It doesn’t look like it” Dean pointed out.  
Gabriel frowned. “Because that’s not what bothers me, you dickhead” he said.  
Dean felt his heart beating a little faster as he let himself hoping. But hoping for what, exactly? Even if all that fuss had simply been about him all the time, what exactly did it matter? Would it change the fact that he was going to say yes in a couple of minutes? Would it stop him?  
No, it wouldn’t. He had to look out for Sam: that was his job and he hadn’t been too good at it lately. Sammy was his little brother, his priority, no way that he would have let him rot in Lucifer’s cage. _His_ Hell had been terrible, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like in that place.  
“You are by far the stupidest human I have ever met, Dean-o” Gabriel made sure to let him know. “But also the most- interesting”  
Dean raised his eyebrow. “Interesting? A whole English vocabulary in front of you, and you go for “interesting”? You could have chosen something better and more fitting. Like ‘adorable’. I am, indeed, adorable”  
“And what about ‘annoying’?” Gabriel smirked.  
“I am afraid you have had me confused with yourself, dude”  
Dean smiled, lowering his head.  
“Are you…” he hesitated before asking “Staying here or what?”  
Dean could fear Gabriel staring at him. After a couple of seconds, he chose to meet his eyes. Gabriel lowered his gaze.  
“You know, I think I am kind of a coward. I always run. And I don’t want to see this, Dean” he confessed.  
Dean nodded. “I understand” he said. He truly did. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted him to see.  
“No, you don’t” Gabriel replied “Because then I have met this stubborn human who pulled me back into the fight and now… Now I don’t want to run away. I’m staying”  
Dean was speechless for a couple of seconds: he was expecting _anything_ but the heartfelt – as much as brief – speech Gabriel just gave him. And he had nothing to give him in return, because he was an idiot and he didn’t even understand what was going on in his head.  
“I- Thank you. I appreciate that” _Oh, come on, dude, you can do better than that!_ “You know, I- I get the whole thing about my memories- I- Thank you for- I mean- For caring- I guess”  
Gabriel smiled, but not in a touched way, more like he was going to laugh at him. Dean preceded him, because even he could hear how difficult he had sounded.  
“Okay, alright, that was awful” he admitted.  
“Yeah, a little” Gabriel agreed “But I got it”  
Dean nodded. _I know you did_.  
“So… It’s time”  
Gabriel sighed. “Apparently”  
Dean took a couple of steps away from him, staring at the sky: “Hey, Michael, you son of a bitch, I’m here! Come here to get my ass before I change my mind!”  
In the seconds that preceded Michael’s arrival, Dean’s last thought was for Sam and his wellbeing, while his last look was for Gabriel and his goodbye hidden behind a nod.  


 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to explain a thing that Gabriel didn’t tell Dean during the story because I felt like it didn’t fit the narrative and it would have been forced: Rick wasn’t killed by the Croats, he was killed by Gabriel. The night when Dean and Gabriel were sleeping in the bed together, Rick went out for a walk. There, he was possessed by an angel, who he said yes to because he promised to give him his family back. It was a coincidence that the angel possessed someone who was in contact with Dean Winchester, but anyway the angel made Michael know where they were and where they were directed to. When “Rick” came back, Gabriel obviously recognized the angel, who was taken aback when he found him there (I assume that if Rick didn’t know that Gabriel was that Gabriel, then neither would the angel, before meeting him). Gabriel plays it cool and they talk until Dean is awake. Suspecting that the angel had informed Michael of their intentions, Gabriel tried to change Dean’s mind about going to Rick’s uncle, but when he couldn’t he decided to just kill the angel sooner than he predicted. He suggested to Dean to go look for a car while he and Rick looked for the food, and when they were alone he killed him. Then he set up the whole Croats story, with the dead bodies and food dropped on the ground, pretending to be hurt to not make Dean suspect anything.


End file.
